Microsoft says: IE6 is like 9 year old milk
microsoft.com
microsoft.com
Why can't you have IE7+ on Windows 2000 or IE9 on Windows XP? the latest version of Firefox (3.6) works on both.
And, why can't you install multiple versions of IE on a computer?
I think these things are holding a number of the remaining people back from upgrading.
Firefox 2 is becoming too big of a security risk.
Or you could use Opera, that even supports Windows 95! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers#Hist...
During the debates surrounding the anti-trust trial MS argued that that, browser tied to the OS, is a feature. They were close to saying that the browser is the OS.
It wouldn't be a problem if Microsoft had been using the 'browser' as an integral part of the OS for displaying information etc. However, Microsoft is using IE as an integral part of the OS.
I remember back in my days of using MSN messenger it was easy as a drop of a hat to cause a BSOD by disabling IE and clicking the link in MSN to my hotmail inbox. It would try to launch IE, freak out, crash MSN, then Explorer and then you'd get a BSOD. From what I've heard, this problem has somehow gotten worse.
No one would care if the internal documentation browser wasn't updated.
I think they were the IE engine for the main explorer folder view in Windows 98 - all the active desktop and custom folder backgrounds and theming the sidebar which slowly vanished in XP and onwards was MS-HTML and CSS based.
It wasn't a stupid design decision, it was just a design decision.
In contrast the HTML on the web is changing very quickly and therefore the browser needs frequent updates to keep up.
1) Computer repair shops very frequently format computers and re-install pirated copies of Windows. Considering the spyware problem of not too long ago, this is incredibly common.
2) Many parts of the world don't have stores like Best Buy and Dell might not ship there. Many computers are sold as brand new with a pirated copy of Windows.
3) In some nations, pirated Windows copies are sold by street vendors right next to pirated movies and video games. If you don't understand or respect intellectual property rights, you might as well upgrade from XP to Win 7 for next to nothing.
Microsoft estimates that 1 in 5 computers has an illegal copy of Windows: http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2173265/...
Even if you adjust for source-bias, that's a pretty bug number.
(Also, FYI, if you do buy a computer and it came with an illegal copy of Windows, you should contact Microsoft to trade it in for a legit copy. It's usually free to do so provided you rat on the sketchy vendor)
http://nsslabs.com/test-reports/NSS%20Labs%20Browser%20Secur...
Obviously there's reason to be a bit more skeptical about a paid-for study than a truly independent one.
"From an initial list of 12,000 new suspicious sites, 1,756 potentially-malicious URLs were pre-screened for inclusion in the test ... Of the initial 1,756 URLs, ultimately 562 URLs passed our post-validation process and are included in the final results"
Since they don't describe their pre-screening or "post-validation" process anywhere in the report, you can't assume it's a completely random set of malicious URLs. In fact, the URLs they tested might have been cherry-picked to give IE8 a higher score.
What was the marketing department thinking?
About marketing. It's a metaphor that's hard to forget. And it makes the point that browsers can "go bad" after a time period because the rest of the industry has moved on. I think the goal was not to find a perfect metaphor but to get IE6 users to upgrade their browsers.
You're marketing a version of your product which is compared against a carton of milk. I tend to think that when you're marketing a browser you should regard them as valuable cars, as you wan't to build up some goodwill among your customer base.
If your customers regard your browser as a carton of milk which basically is just a carton of milk - a product that's fastly consumed - then what makes them to connect to your product (in this case, an internet browser)? Will it build goodwill?
What if mercedes benz announced that their old products are just tin cans - and that you probably wouldn't want to keep old tin cans laying around - what kind of a message would the company be conveying to the customer in view of their product?
If microsoft itself views the explorer product family as cartons of milk and also conveys a clear message of it through its own marketing - then, in my opinion, as brutal as it sounds, it's time to rebrand the product. Even when you're publishing a new version of the product, essentially, you'll just be publishing a prettier carton of milk.
that is most certainly true for milk, its not so clear with cars (vintage cars are popular, if cars are looked after they can last a long long time)
But what I do believe, is that they're asking the customer to think the analogy behind the idea of not drinking 9 year old milk and connecting that to the idea of not using a 9 yo browser (old = bad, new = good as you said). Wouldn't you agree that for that analogy to work with the message they're trying to convey, you need to make a connection of putting the IE Browser into the milk's place in that analogy?
I mean look at that page: half of your screen is filled with a carton of milk - the other half tells about why you wouldn't use a browser (IE 6) which also is 9 yo. So wouldn't you agree that somewhere in there lies the notion of IE 6 being as good as 9 yo milk?
Probably?
And remember that most people are bad at remembering numbers. Names, on the other hand, are something that most people do remember better.
Therefore, imho, I don't understand what the marketing department was thinking, as in my opinion, the advert connects your thoughts about 9yo milk to an internet browser (of which we already have created our own views) - and in the long run people will most probably only remember 9 yo milk & Internet Explorer (and bear in mind that this advert comes from microsoft).
Therefore, the question of what was the marketing department thinking rose into my mind. I believe that the point of viewing and "comparing" IE & a carton of milk screams for some serious rebranding for the product called "internet explorer" - because nerds can really relate to that message or what?
And in the end of the day, they are the people who power the revolutions of switching browsers.
tl;dr I don't believe that the advert works in advantage for Microsoft & IE
Clearly they couldn't think of anything really good to say about IE8 except that it's not [that] old.
Perhaps they should have compared IE6 to MS Windows ME or something else from that time that was really really bad.
Maybe "you've ditched Billy Bass, you've moved on from The Sims, you're not wearing those capri pants anymore; no more monotonic ring-tones, ugg boots are out; you've served your time as Apprentice and made and lost your million on the 'net; you're not going to stand for no more snakes on no more planes; so, isn't it time you upgraded your broswer for what's left of this new millenium? - IE8 get it in FTW".
Bit formulaic, but that's my pitch - did I win?
I couldn't have come up with a pitch like yours, which imo would be so much better for Microsoft than the current "carton of milk" -analogy.
;0)
By any chance, do you not work in marketing? Are you part of the target audience (that is, do you still run IE6)? No? Are you, rather, a fairly sophisticated user, maybe dare I say, a geek? Yes?
Then don't judge the effectiveness of that particular marketing, it doesn't make sense to you, and that's perfectly acceptable.
no - I don't work in marketing, and you're probably right about the fact that I am not even near the target audience.
But does it really matter?
I believe you can relate to the fact that the more further you're from the target audience the more objectively you can slice & dice the advert. Of course, I might be too far away from the target audience so my views might be biased in that sense.
I don't pass judgement. I started writing in the basis that I wanted to share my own perception of the matter and hear what you guys have to say against it.
Surfing with IE6 is like drinking 9-year-old milk you found in the dumpster. It wasn't a good idea when it was just-expired milk, but now it's even worse.
Does anyone know if this is true, or is Microsoft twisting the facts as usual?
yum.
Signed, every web developer in the world
Focusing on how someone could come to financial loss by using a certain browser is a great angle. Money means something to everyone no matter how much they know about the internet.